Germany Redux

(This post was originally intended to be published the week of February 14)

If you had asked my last year if I had ever been to Germany, I would have responded dismissively, "yeah [as in "duh"], of course I have - I mean, I've like done Germany." But upon further reflection, I realized I really hadn't. My only experience in Germany heretofore were two nights we spent at a family friend's house outside of Munich (the day in between we spent in Austria), and a long drive down the autobahn back to the Netherlands. My only memories are of my amusement over the spelling of "Munchen" on the road signs, and how a coffee machine at a gas station had an option for "extra hell". Seeing as I was twelve at the time, beer didn't really hold much interest for me.

As a result, our 36-hour trip last weekend to Koln (Cologne) and Bonn was spectacular because it all felt much more new than I had anticipated. To wit:

• German beer halls are awesome. Which raises the question why we have we not yet achieved their full importation into the U.S. (cf. taquerias and pinkberry)
• Relatedly, bars are much more fun when everyone is drinking the same thing.
• Cheesy movie stereotypes aside, German people are remarkably nice.
• German does not sound like Dutch (though it often looks like it).
• Whatever. You had me at sausage.

From the above list, it will be obvious that we spent about 40% of our time in eating establishments. I can now report that, up to this point in my life, I have seriously underestimated German beer halls.

First, you have communal tables in a cozy environment, which is - when mixed with lots and lots of beer - a recipe for conviviality. American efforts to reconstruct German beer halls typically fail at this fundamental level: they are cavernous rooms that always feel cold and impersonal, not human-scale spaces with low ceilings and colored glass windows and sawdust on the floor. The latter is much more conducive to dancing between the tables, or swaying with your arm over your neighbor's shoulder while singing a song you might or might not know.

Second, you get to assume everyone only wants to drink one thing (in Koln, this would be Kolsch). This allows the waiters to walk around with trays full of beers, handing them out to whoever wants one and marking the tally on your coaster - which in turn makes paying a heck of a lot easier. The efficiency is stellar: dirty glasses (kolsch glasses are skinny and small, holding about a third of a pint) are dunked into sudsy water, rinsed in running water, and fitted back into circular trays, which are then spun under taps of kolsch that are pretty much always running before being handed back to the waiters rushing by.

The rest seems less important: the sausage and egg and potato laden menus (easy to make fun of, but actually quite delicious); the jovial German manly men waiters always dressed in blue shirts and long blue aprons; the quick tallying of your bill at your table with the waiter ready to settle it on the spot (none of this waiting for the change nonsense). No, you marketers out there, take it from me: the recipe for an awesome German beer hall is (1) communal tables, (2) a small and cozy space, (3) only one beer on tap, (4) but very good beer, and (5) a snazzy yet efficient way to serve it.

In fact, I liked Germany so much that I would now not say I had "done" Germany - not (at the very least) until I have seen the beer halls of Munich and Berlin, too.

Anyone up for Oktoberfest?

(If you happen to find yourself in Koln and looking for a good beer hall, we very much enjoyed Paffgen (Friesenstrasse 64-66) and Schreckenskammer (Ursulagartenstrasse 11-15).)

Dag, Strippenkaart!

(This post was originally intended to be published February 3.)

Don't get me started.

The Dutch like to make things complicated, in the name of efficiency. They devised many years ago the strippenkaart, an ingenious system to standardize payment for public transit throughout the country - but which proved to be, at the same time, both impossible to decipher and easy to cheat.

Since before our arrival last fall, the Dutch have been slowly easing the strippenkaart out, to be replaced with a nation-wide stored-value card (like the Charlie card in Boston, or the SmartTrip card in DC). But unlike the Charlie and SmartTrip cards, the people who designed the OV Chipkaart wanted it all: something that would work on all public transit throughout the country, but that would also charge you per kilometer. Thus you have to tap your OV Chipkaart whenever you get on or off a bus or tram. If you mess up, your punishment is a 4 euro charge. If the machine messes up, your punishment is a 4 euro charge. One of these two scenarios happens surprisingly often.

Take me as an example. Granted, I am not Dutch, nor do I speak Dutch. But I am an intelligent, educated, and careful person who has successfully used stored-value cards in myriad metropolitan transit systems. (Update: On a recent trip to London, my use of the Oyster card was flawless.) I would venture to say that the problem is not me. But in a two-day period last November, between the REM subway in Rotterdam and the HTM trams in Den Haag, Jeff and I managed to lose 16 euros. Now this is where the exasperating part comes in.

Whatever the cause of an OV Chipkaart mess-up, if you want your money back, you have to apply for it. I have now long surpassed the time-for-money value ratio for our 16 euros, but it's become a matter of principle. With HTM, it took standing in line, 30 minutes with a Dutch form and six weeks for them to refund 3.30 euros out of the 4 euros they owed me. (And for the record, that was a clear machine mess up.)

For Rotterdam - oh, Rotterdam - I waited in two separate lines, spent more than 30 minutes deciphering a Dutch web form, then waited two months to no avail. When I finally made it back to Rotterdam in person, a nice lady explained that of course I couldn't use the online application form (don't ask me why) and gave me paper applications - which she partially filled out for me - that I submitted the very next day. Four weeks later, still nothing.

I also don't understand how tourists are supposed to use public transportation anymore, since (1) the stored-value cards cost 7.50 euros (yes, please let me pay you for the privilege of having you take my money and refuse to give it back), and (2) if you ever do succeed in convincing them to give you your money back, they will only refund it to a Dutch bank account.

I am so scarred by this experience that I have not used my OV chipkaart for three months. I have gotten by by reverting to the good ol' reliable strippenkaart. But the strippenkaart was phased out of the Hague area on February 3. (Why February 3, a Thursday? I don't know, and I also don't know why they ended up extending the deadline anyway. What can I say, it's Dutch.)

Oh, strippenkaart - how I will miss you. For now, I will have to await the popular uprising against the OV-chipkaart.

***

Update: On March 30 - 144 days after our fateful visit to Rotterdam last November (but who's counting) - the Rotterdam metro refunded 9.66 of the wrongly deducted 12 euros to our bank account. Whatever, I'll take even partial victory at this point.

I celebrated by promptly forgetting to "check out" the next time I took the tram - at the cost of another 4 euros. Sigh.

Pictures!

Jeff has conveniently posted some public albums of our European travels up through the end of the year, including the picture we had meant to attach to our Happy New Year's email (oops). Enjoy!

Best. Day. Ever.

My blogging silence over the last month has been due solely to a large project at work that - thanks be to heaven - we successfully completed last week (World problems: solved! International criminality: vanquished!). Over the next couple of weeks, I will publish belatedly a batch of blog entries I drafted during February but never had a chance to post. Expect to be amazed! (or at least, I hope, entertained...)

But first I thought I'd share, as a one-day snapshot of my life in the Hague, how I celebrated the completion of this monster project: My Best-Day-Ever, Dutch style.

• 6:30: Wake up. Decide to go back to sleep.
• 7:30: Creative writing, with coffee and breakfast made by Jeff (with love!).
• 8:00: Yoga with my youtube guru, Esther Ekart.
• 8:30: Pick out my favorite dress to wear to work (it has glitter and ruffles! Even boys compliment it!)
• 9:30: Leave the house an hour later than normal but with no sense of guilt or compunction. Pause while transiting through Central Station for a koffie verkeerd (cafe au lait) and a hot danish. Decide to take the bus instead of the tram the rest of the way to work - less efficient, but more scenic.
• 10:30: Spend the first hour at work chatting socially with assorted colleagues.
• 12:15: Go to Step (aerobics) class at the in-house gym.
• 2:30: After a late lunch, embark on a cathartic cleaning of my office. Shred massive amounts of paper. Amaze colleagues with the ability to actually see the surface of my desk.
• 4:00: G-chat with friends back in the States.
• 5:30: Enjoy leaving work early.
• 6:30: Go with a work friend to see Black Swan at a movie theater downtown.

Tangent: This was my first movie experience in the Hague, and it was delightfully civilized. The movie theater is in a Beaux Artes building on one of the main pedestrianized squares downtown. When you buy your tickets, you choose your seats - an ingenious concept that both allows you to see how crowded the theater is before you commit to tickets and obviates any need to throw sharp elbows to get non-neck straining seats. Instead we could relax over a glass of wine and bar snacks in the lovely art deco bar of the movie house (which in the warmer months spills out onto the square) before walking into the theater right as the movie previews started. Even better, you can "subscribe" to the local movie house chain and go to as many movies as you like for less than the cost of two movie tickets per month. This could be the start of a very dangerous addiction...

• 10:00: Late sushi dinner at a tiny Japanese restaurant on a canal around the corner from my apartment. Unfortunately, sushi in Den Haag is nothing to write home about, but sometimes there's just an itch that needs to be scratched.
• 11:30: Contemplate joining another colleague at the wine bar on the way home. Decide instead to go directly to bed and sleep for 10 hours. Sweet.

I have, by the way, a personal philosophy that we should all have best-days-ever at least once a week: the day when the bus comes as soon as you get to the bus stop, and there's a window seat free; or when the Starbucks barrista accidentally makes you a grande instead of a tall; or when you get to catch up with friends for happy hour; or your loved one has dinner waiting for you when you get home from work. It's a stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of theory.